Updates and Thanks

Last week we started taking apart the bathroom. Everything was going according to plan. Then we noticed that one of the walls looked like it used to support the original corner of the house. So we had Josh's Dad look at it before we removed the closet. While he was there he noticed alot of things that needed to be fixed. So Sunday his parents came back to help. We would like to give them a big thank you for the massive help they gave us over the past weekend at the house. His Dad, Tom brought his great carpentry skills and he and Josh tore the bathroom apart then put it back together. Mary Ellen, Josh's Mom, was the master cleaner and managed to clean the rest of the cellulose that covered the bedroom floor, you can see in our pictures of the demo, no small task. Again, many thanks.

That day Laura also went to get us a sink. We'll add pictures soon.

You can see photos of the bathroom with it's new sub-floor and new studs on the Flickr page. The tub is there too.  Also, Josh went over after work to see what the plumber and electrician had done. The report: We have PEX tubing in the cellar and a lot of something happening with the electrical.

Josh was also going to strip the front hall. He got distracted and started opening the livingroom wall, to find the old stove mantle.

Good Book

I'm about halfway through "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle" by Barbara Kingsolver generously loaned to me by a work friend. Every time I pick it up to read it relaxes me. I would love to start a garden of sorts but we really don't have any land to grow on. If anybody has any ideas or experience growing veggies on a small plot please let me know. Josh is really the better plant care-giver of the two of us, an ability I suspect he learned from his parents. His mother has a beautiful flower garden on her tiny plot in Milford.
In other news the plumber, roofer and electrician have all been working at the house. We already have half a new roof. I can't believe it's all happening so fast!

Original from 25, January: Fun with Tools!

So we finally closed on the house on Tuesday afternoon and started demolision on the bathroom Wednesday morning. A lot of fun. Josh and I are a good demolition team. Yesterday Josh had to work and I cleaned and packed at the apartment. This morning we went to the town hall and pulled the building permit we needed to make this all official then went to the house with our contractor. The dumpster arrived and we were off! Take a look at our neat pics and video of the fun we had. 
We discovered conclusively today that the house is at least from the 1800's. We found pre-massproduced nails (the square kind), wide floor boards, the outline and pipe connection for a stove in the master bedroom, and ceiling joists made of boards milled straight from trees.
We could tell by their irregular shape.
I suspect we will find something very similar in the front room when we open up that wall.
The green note for the day is the dumpster we got is from a place in Holliston which will recycle as much of the debris from the house as possible. We also saved a good deal of the lathe after removing the old horse hair plaster. We're hoping this can stay and provide a solid backing for the drywall we intend to put up.
Many thanks to Mom and Dad who showed up at the end of the day with hot chowder and a shop-vac!

Fun With Tools

So somewhere towards the end of last week we wrote a post and then somehow managed to loose it. That post was about the actual closing of the house (we finally got the seller put aside its slavish love of bureaucracy for a minute to sell it to us). And the subsequent fun we had with tools for the rest of the week.
A lot of banging, flying plaster and old wallpaper discoveries followed. The nicest thing we discovered was that the house dates to probably the 1800's. We were afraid it was younger (gasp!) because all records for the house were from 1940 or later. We are happy to report the discovery of some wide, hand hewn boards in the attic, square nails (the shape most nails came in before they were mass produced) and the evidence of an old stove and mantle on the lathe of the master bedroom. So it's our favorite kind of house, recycled many times!

Insulation

I have a guy coming Wednesday to give us an estimate on soybean foam insulation. Our alternative is this stuff. We can just buy it an put it in ourselves.

Josh

We've Added Photos

Hi, Josh here.

I added a Flickr page to show you pictures of what has been going on. That link is here, http://www.flickr.com/photos/23194621@N02/, and in the right margin of the blog's main page. There is also a video of laura tearing apart the masterbedroom.


Enjoy,

Josh

Appliances

Hello,

We still haven't closed on the house which means we are not yet knee deep in construction. However, we have been able to buy our appliances in anticipation of the move. Appliances are  a big part of how efficient your house can be. We have a very specific budget and within that we have tried to buy the best (meaning most efficient and durable) appliances we can afford. Our first purchase and so far the only appliance tat we have paid full price for is an Asko washing machine. I originally found out about the Asko online when I was doing research for efficient appliances. The websites I read were about the extreme efficiency of Asko clothes washers on three different levels, water conservation, energy conservation and soap conservation. I am not putting laundry soap on the list of environmental causes but it doesn't hurt that you only need a tablespoon of detergent per load. Asko is a Swedish brand, a country that has long been listed as one of the cleanest and most environmentally conscious countries in the world. I just need to say that I cannot wait to start using this machine. I get excited just thinking about it. We also managed to score another Asko appliance for our house, the dishwasher. We originally did not think that we could also afford an Asko dishwasher because they are one of the most expensive brands on the market. We managed to get a 2002 model at a discount from a kitchen showroom in the area that was trying to move it out to make room for a new model. I found it on craigslist.org Boston which has already proven to be a great tool for us in our quest for furniture and appliances. The dishwasher has never been used so is in essentially new condition and we bought it for only $600 which is about half of the original price. Woohoo! If you can't afford an Asko I  would recommend a Bosch dishwasher and/or washing machine. They are only slightly less efficient, a few hundred dollars less and more widely available. Just make sure to check the energy guide tag because Bosch has different lines with different levels of efficiency. Of course the higher efficiency comes with a higher price but do the math and see how much you will save on your water and energy bills with the more efficient appliance. 

We were able to get our range and refrigerator on sale at the end of the year and is another big reason we were able to stick to our budget. We got a 21 CF GE Profile fridge on sale and it actually uses less energy than the lowest end of the energy guide scale. Before we found that fridge though we were planning to get an 18.5 CF fridge that uses only 407 kilowatt hours per year. This was the lowest energy consumption that I could find readily available on the American market in a regular sized refrigerator. They come in several price ranges as well so if you're on a tight budget and you can't find a sale you should be able to pick one up for about $600-$800. We did not go for energy efficiency on our range. The data is not readily available and they are not the biggest energy suckers in the kitchen by a long shot. We got a servicable little Hotpoint range. Hotpoint gets high marks for durability so hopefully this one will last us longer thereby cutting down on the need to replace the range and creating more waste faster. If you have money to blow I would recommend an induction cooktop because it is by far the most efficient use of energy. The stove only heats the pot and what's inside it. The stove never gets hot to the touch so it's safer if you have kids or pets. They will run upwards of a thousand dollars and that does not include an oven. Josh is complaining that I've ben writing too long so I'm going to close up shop. 

The Beginning

So this is the story of us and a house and our attempts to make it into a little ecologically sound oasis in what seems to be an increasingly hostile environment towards, well, the environment. We don't have a lot of extra money, we come in right around the national income average. One thing I have discovered is that there isn't that much good information out there for people in our position doing this sort of thing. If you are super rich you can afford all the high end, high efficiency appliances, the solar panels, the carbon offset credits. Then there is the other extreme. People who eschew all trappings of the world. They build huts out of earth and use straw bales for insulation.
Where is the middle path I wonder? What about those of us who don't exist in those two minorities? Can we step lightly on the earth too? Can there be a balance? As soon as we close on this house we are going to try our hardest to create a home that we can feel good about. Hopefully you will join us and try some of these ideas yourself !

Welcome.

Good Morning.